It's kind of funny to read the New York Times article on the Flaming Lips on the same day that QV posts the old Esquire Flaming lips article. The Esquire piece eagerly took the Lips at their words--always a bad idea--and depicted Beck as a peulent "rock star." Said article was subsequently and somewhat legendarily revealed as an elaborate prank between the Lips and Beck. Beck can be a bit of a sourpuss, but so can Tom Waits--that doesn't mean either will reject a hotel room for the wall color. Now, from the Times article, we read:

Two hours before the White Stripes and the Flaming Lips ushered in 2004 with their double-bill New Year's Eve concert at the historic Aragon Ballroom here, the Flaming Lips were onstage blowing up oversize balloons, posing inflatable robots and setting up a giant video screen and confetti machine for their extravagant multimedia show.

By contrast, Jack and Meg White, who make up the White Stripes, were mostly backstage until performance time, their roadies, in black suits and bowler hats, guarding their dressing suite. The White Stripes are rock stars, and stars are not supposed to do stagehand work.

Uh, yeah, or it could have something to do with the fact that the White Stripes have three instruments and no stage setup. They could set their shit up in about 15 minutes, and probably did. The Lips, on the other hand, have a really elaborate setup, and since they probably know its layout and operation best, it's no surprise that they're all out there setting it up. And this doesn't even mean that the exes White hadn't done their setup a few hours ago. Sheesh, dude.
posted by Mike B. at 3:53 PM 0 comments